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Tony Blair answers his critics on his anti-libertarian policies in an article in the Observer,

His first line of defence is that these charges are crafted by parts of the right wing and now taken up by parts of the left that New Labour is authoritarian, in particular, that I am. We are intent on savaging British liberties, locking up those who dissent and we abhor parliamentary or other accountability.

By attributing these charges to the fringes of the political spectrum, the obvious conclusion we are directed to reach is that the charges are baseless because of their origin. But then is he factually correct do these charges emanate from the fringes, if that were that case he would simply dismiss them out of hand.

Blair then goes on to give the reasons The reason right wingers are keen on this is clear. New Labour has eschewed traditional forms of leftist statism. So the type of claim they used to make about the Attlee or Wilson governments they can’t plausibly make about us.

As the definition of stateism is the doctrine of giving a centralized government control over economic planning and policy. I would suggest that Blair’s government has not eschewed stateism, the traditional form of, perhaps, but this government is very keen on central control, much more than either the Attlee or Wilson governments would have deared to be. It is simply they are bringing central control into different areas.

Have we become indifferent to liberty? At one level, the charge is easy to debunk. But on another level, there is a serious debate about the nature of liberty in the modern world. I accept the good faith of our critics. I just believe them to be profoundly mistaken.

Later in the article Blair puts “a new case about liberty in the modern world. I am from the generation that I would characterise, crudely, as hard on behaviour, but soft on lifestyle, i.e. I support tough measures on crime but am totally pro gay rights. I believe in live and let live, except where your behaviour harms the freedom of others. A society with rules but without prejudices is how I might sum it up.”

That of course is from the leader of a party which banned Hunting, is about to ban smoking in pubs, etc. It would appear that Blair wishes to define what is and what is not liberty, and to allow only that liberty he wants. Blair is accepting that these laws do transgress basic liberties, but that does not matter because we are going to make a new case about liberty.

The point is about our rights to control our government and our rights. Blair does not fair so well on the liberty front, about Parliament Blair says “As for parliament, I have spent proportionately more time answering questions than any predecessor; given more statements; am the only PM ever to agree to appear before the select committee chairs; the only one to give monthly press conferences. And I gave a vote specifically on whether to go to war.”

Other than allowing parliament a vote on the war which was forced on him, the other evidence is all about things which do not impact on governments powers, he can spend all day answering question before he rushes of to a press conference, but that will not alter the fact that with his enabling acts and other Bills like the regulatory reform act, he is eroding the power of parliament to control his government.

Blair argues that for him this is not an issue of liberty but of modernity and The question is not one of individual liberty vs the state but of which approach best guarantees most liberty for the largest number of people.

Blair seem quite sanguine about the removal of our liberties, and seems to belive that he has the moral right to do so for the greater good.

He cites as his excuse for removing liberties;

Antisocial behaviour isn’t susceptible to normal court process. Modern organised crime is really ugly. That IRA terrorism is different in nature and scale from the new global Islamic terrorism.

But does not mention that it is the Human Rights Act, for which he claims, “for the first time, a citizen can challenge the power of the state solely on the basis of an infringement of human rights” that prevents the government from taking action against international terrorists and criminals because the act forces the government to offer the same rights to foreigners as it if they were nationals.

Finally Blair has a dig at the Conservatives and LibDem`s Their attitude to liberty does indicate, though, a refusal to understand the modern world. If the nature of the threat changes, so should our policies. That is not destroying our liberties, but protecting them.

So his argument boils down to the single idea that to protect our liberties v the state, you have to destroy them so that the state can take action against a lawless minority. This really means that we are all being deprived of our liberties because of the actions of a few.

The whole argument of course is also based not on English Common Law, but on Roman Law concepts, instead of the state being the protector of inexorable rights, it has become the provider of rights. It is clearly evident in everything Blair says, that he believes he has the authority to dispense with our traditional protections against the state, and replace them with rights he himself has defined.

Any government, that is its own judge of, and determines authoritatively for the people, what are its own powers over the people, is an absolute government of course. It has all the powers that it chooses to exercise. There is no other — or at least no more accurate — definition of a despotism than this. Spooner